The Eternal, the Mortal
by Thorn In Your Side
Summary: Kyuubi will live forever. Naruto will not. A tailed beast is immortal. A demon vessel is not. The fox muses over his human's fate, and his thoughts on the matter. NOT KYUUNARU!


**The Eternal, the Mortal**

**Disclaimer: I own Naruto like I own you. Exactly. Also, I borrowed themes from the Bartimaeus Trilogy and Death Note…I don't own those either. **

**A/N: I should hire someone to stop me from churning out one-shots and focus on my stories. I swear. But I can't afford it, what're you gonna do? –shrug-**

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

I am Kyuubi no Kitsune. That is what most humans call me, in any case. My true name was lost before your kind was born, and is only rediscovered by accident and luck…and every time it is, I am summoned. I have bee called a monster, a beast, a destroyer. I have been called a savior, a god, a king.

More recently, my titles tend to include names like _fuzzball _or _furface _or _idiot fox. _I assure you, there is only one who calls me that, and if I could kill him for it, I would.

Probably.

But the one thing I consider myself as, I have never been called.

_Father. _

Let me explain.

Your kind entertains me. Humans are disgusting creatures, but they excite me. They do not hesitate to hurt the ones they love. To my kind, bonds, once made, are unbreakable. To _**your **_kind, they are shackles of convenience, shaken off when they burden your quest for self satisfaction. To our kind, harming a breeding female is beyond taboo. The times I have seen _**your **_kind murder unborn kits are innumerable.

Humans were disgusting to me. I watched them—I watched you with a morbid fascination. Until _**him. **_

I had been freer than I had ever been in your world. Madara had let me go, had released me from all seals and binds. I was allowed, for the first time, to wreak havoc to my heart's content.

But then he came along—the big dumb blond who, on closer inspection, turned out to be not so dumb after all. He gave up his life to seal me, and he saved his own soul by locking me into his kit's belly button. _**Belly button. **_

I tell you, it's a wonder I haven't died of shame.

For thirteen years I more or less ignored my vessel. For thirteen years I dully gazed at the world through his eyes, watching what he watched, seeing what he saw. All too often he watched others of his age, with parents. All too often I felt the pangs in his heart as a transparent glance was cast his way. I had watched your world enough to know that he needed love, and attention. I had watched enough to know that a grieving heart is a weak one, easy to manipulate from **_sad _**to**_ bad. _**If I could corrupt the boy's mind, I could corrode his body with a mere brush of my aura, and break free of this tedious prison.

I still amaze myself with my capacity for error.

I tried to talk to him—he wouldn't listen. I pretended I was his subconscious—but he pushed me away. It was as though he knew I was in him, and I was not him. He loved his stupid village with its unreasonable cruelty to the orphans of heroes. He wouldn't listen to my reasoning, wouldn't see that he ought to seek revenge instead of approval and acceptance.

I took notice of him properly in his thirteenth year. During his first real brush with death. He had been pushed off a cliff by some white haired hentai, and his screams reverberated in his head. I knew it was a ruse for the hermit to see my power, I knew he wouldn't let him actually die…but to stop those screams I lent him my power. I still don't know why, why the instinct to quell his fear sprang up then, when I barely knew the brat.

No, that's a lie. I knew. I know.

Perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of affection for the offspring I never had…I started to think of him as _**my **_kit. _**My **_son. _**My **_Naruto.

It's laughable. I should feel nothing but scorn for the boy and his frail form in which I am trapped. I should feel hatred for his parentage, for being the spawn of the man who curbed my freedom. I should have taken pleasure in his terrified shrieks, but I didn't.

I know no good will come of this. Every time I loan him my prowess, his life force ebbs away, his body wears down. I surreptitiously replace it with my own, knowing it means that he will soon be integrated into me one day. He will lose his body, and as his tenant, that does not bode well for me. It is one thing for him to die and my being released, quite another for his body to quietly disappear into mine.

I would like to merge with his soul. I would like to preserve the one part of him that is truly his for all eternity, which is how long I shall live. I would like t have his thoughts with me to boast to my future containers of. A father showing off his kit's greatness. But I can't, even if he would let me. I am the Nine-Tails, the greatest of the bijuu. It is not possible for a human to share a soul with me. Unlike the lower ranks of the tailed beasts, I would _**destroy **_the kit just by lowering the barriers by separating us. I'm not being conceited—it's the stark reality of my strength.

The boy fights on, for his friend. I watch with the same eyes that gave the Uchihas their sharingan: I see his life sliding past. When you've lived as long as I have, the lapse of a human lifetime is very short. When his father—his true father—bound me, he made it so that I would think and see with the speed of a human mind, but he could not suppress my intelligence.

My kit will die one day, and I will be left alone and free.

I suppose it will hurt. I have never lost a kit, but I know it will hurt. If I could, I would scoop him up into a cavern inside my being and guard him for as long as I can. But that is the desire of every parent, is it not? To hold onto one's offspring for as long as possible—it is an instinct even to your twisted species.

That is no life, though, to be protected forever. Kits are like…what is that you call those containers of ambrosia? Ah, champagne bottles. Kits are like champagne bottles: they ought to be pointed away and released. The best I can do for the human I consider my son, the human that will never consider me as a father, the best I can do for my kit is watch. Watch as he lives, watch as he dies. Maybe meddle in his love life a little—the pink haired female is a far too volatile match. Besides, her hips are too narrow to deliver healthy kits without pain.

In the end, all I will do is watch.

At least I have eternity to numb the pain.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**After uploading this…it strikes me as awkwardly written. Should anyone be willing to beta this, help me find and work out the kinks, please notify me! I really want to make this better. **


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